Down
by OughtaKnowBetter
Summary: On a mercy of mission, the plane goes down with Col. Ryan on board. Story complete. Does it work?
1. Chapter 1

1

Molly Blaine peered out through the window of the plane, casting her gaze at the millions and millions of trees below on the mountain slopes. It was a beautiful sight, with three small riverlets cascading down the edges of the mountain, cutting a swath through the foliage. The trees were still green, for the most part, although a few of the early varieties had decided that orange was this season's must-have color. A scattering of boulders added a slate gray shelf here and there, with one outcropping boasting a giant frozen icicle dangling from a sharp edge like a single earring sparkling in the light. It was too far beneath her to tell for certain, but Molly fancied that the black dots were a pack of wolves, hunting for dinner during the fattening up period before winter—and the winter starvation—hit.

More definite was the road that wound around the mountain as though it were a belt that had slipped down its owner's hips. From this height Molly couldn't tell whether the road was paved, or, more likely, packed dirt rutted with pot holes dug in by heavy loads and heavy snowdrifts over the years but it didn't matter. Molly didn't expect to have to travel over those roads. The owners could take care of road maintenance however they saw fit. Molly had her own problems to cope with, problems that took the majority of her time and resources.

Although one of those problems that she couldn't do anything about appeared to be affecting her immediate future: a cloud. Not just a single cloud, but a flock of them, dark and forbidding and filled with wind and rain. If those clouds were content to stay peaceably on the mountainside, then Molly would be likewise satisfied with their behavior. These, however, looked to be a bit more ominous.

But she couldn't do anything about them. No, flying the plane across the mountainous terrain of Uzbekistan was the job of the very competent pilot and co-pilot sitting in the cockpit of this lumbering warhorse, the pair that had greeted her and Kim Brown and Colonel Tom Ryan and the pair of medics that had undertaken this mission of compassion, bringing medicine and toys and education to one of the small villages devastated by the break up of the Soviet Union more than a decade ago. The overlords were gone but the problems remained: poverty and lack of health care contributing to one of the lower life expectancies anywhere in the world. The main cities of the country—Tashkent, for example—enjoyed a cosmopolitan standard of living but in the backwoods there was a great deal to be offered.

Which was what had led to the current expedition. There were the donations from the people of America, matched by corporate donations, and ferried to the backwoods town by the good wishes and skills and planes of the United States Army. Someone higher up in the military food chain had decided that Colonel Ryan was just the man to drag away from his clearly unimportant paper-pushing duties to do some Real Work For a Change: organizing this trip of mercy. Those same food chain predators believed that having some real honest Army Wives along to Do Good and Spread American Good Will was just the thing for a photo opportunity and instructed Colonel Ryan to Make It Happen among the significant others of his troops. That those significant others might have families and jobs and other responsibilities was likewise unimportant. The Mission would Go Forward.

It was a choice of complying, or risking the unmasking of Col. Ryan's real work. No option: the mercy mission was on, hopefully to be completed as expeditiously as possible and with as little fuss and bother as Colonel Ryan could manage so that the good colonel could return to his 'pencil-pushing' before all hell broke loose in a less hospitable part of the globe.

When it came to getting things done, Col. Ryan was a sensible man: he delegated. In this case, he delegated as much as he could to the extraordinary talents of Molly Blaine.

Molly was the wife of one of Col. Ryan's top men, Master Sergeant Jonas Blaine, and unofficial leader of the unit wives. There wasn't an issue that went on in the small community that Molly didn't have knowledge of, sooner rather than later, and most of those issues tended to disappear in quiet and short order. And, just as most of the concerns that the Unit dealt with stayed permanently under the public radar, so did Molly's solutions remain permanently buried in someone's closet, never to be discovered until some archeologist poked his nose in after some few hundred years or so.

Of course, that didn't mean there was any lack of uncomfortable moments for Colonel Tom Ryan. Molly wasn't above putting him on the hot seat in her efforts to get what she needed for her own troops. But that was part of what made her so valuable. She wouldn't be as good as she was if she couldn't make others squirm. Tom Ryan considered Jonas Blaine a lucky man to have found her—and equally as lucky to have survived the experience.

Her co-worker on this mission, Kim Brown, was another one such, if lacking in the maturity that Mrs. Blaine demonstrated with such flair. In another several years—after his retirement, if the Good Lord so favored him—Mrs. Brown would come into her own and lead another tribe of military families into the future. Ryan already had his eye on Mrs. Brown's husband as one to advance quickly, and she would make him a worthy soul mate.

Again: should Bob Brown survive the experience, not only as a husband and father but as a member of the Unit. A unit so secret that it existed only in the minds of those who had created it; a team of highly dedicated, highly trained men who went into the night to do the things that world leaders insisted would make the world a better place, but only if the world didn't find out that such things were done. It was the Unit's task to make certain that favorable coincidences happened with astounding regularity.

Blaine's squad had returned just three days prior from one such 'coincidence'. It was a remarkable thing, but a certain drug lord had disappeared en route to his meeting with one of his distributors in Patron de los Santos, and hadn't been heard from since. The debriefing was already under several layers of computer security and Blaine's men hard at work doing their 'clerical' jobs in the far end of the base where such minutiae was done. And if such clerical work required high end work out equipment and heavy barbell weights? Top of the line small arms with sniper scopes? Well, the Army moved in mysterious ways, and this was simply one more of them. And certainly the heavy white bandage across Blaine's bicep was the result of a misplaced paper cut and an overly enthusiastic medic. And wasn't the cut below Mack Gerhardt's eye the consequence of the man clumsily walking into a file cabinet while deep in thought over how many staples to order? The dedication to duty on the part of Blaine's men, and indeed, the entire Unit under the command of Thomas P. Ryan, was heartwarming to behold.

Col. Ryan glanced around the interior of the plane. It was a good deal emptier than it had been, with the entire contents of the plane having been distributed among the good people of the village. He smiled to himself; he had to admit, this mission had done him good. Every now and again a man needed reminding that there were some good people in the world, not just those out to do others harm. _Bit of paranoia rearing its ugly head, Thomas?_ The village kids had been the best, chattering and squabbling over the candy that had gotten pushed into one corner of the plane's cargo area. Mrs. Brown had taken a few photos of them, was sharing the picture with Mrs. Blaine still stored as pixels in the small electronic marvel. Even the medics, seated across the plane from the others, had those tired but satisfied smiles of men who had worked hard and had good results to show for it. They'd been in the village for four days, giving health care and handing out supplies and teaching new ways to prosper, and now the mission personnel were ready to go home for a well deserved rest.

Jonas would be glad to have his wife back again. The man hadn't said word one, but a chance to mosey around the house, doing chores at his leisure, was an opportunity to be savored. Not as a steady diet, but as an occasional occurrence it was as welcome as this mission had been as a chance for Mrs. Blaine to demonstrate that her abilities were capable of stretching far beyond one small corner of a military base. Though after four days of his own cooking, Jonas was looking forward to his wife's return.

As was Bob Brown, saddled with two young children. Bob Brown was as fit as any man on the planet, capable of running a marathon and then some, but keeping up with two small children was enough to tax the greatest of Olympian athletes. Brown never knew that he could so look forward to an afternoon nap—theirs, not his. He had always admired his wife, and his admiration had increased exponentially over the last few days. Sure, he'd gotten help from the other wives, but how did women do this, day after day and year after year? Turning the supply chain over to his wife and her friends would have a strong possibility of improving military efficiency overnight.

The plane took a sudden dip; a cold pocket resulted in a temporary loss of altitude. Ryan peered out through the small window, frowning at the clouds. They looked dark and threatening, and speed with which the clouds were moving suggested equally fast winds that the pilots were coping with.

He glanced back at his charges. "Better tighten those seat belts, ladies," he suggested, noting that the medics had already done the same. "I'll talk to the pilot, see how long he expects this weather to last." He staggered his way forward, clutching onto the stray seat back to steady himself as the plane lurched yet again.

The pilots were busy with the array of dials in front of them. It was the co-pilot that answered Col. Ryan's questions, the pilot concentrating on his job. "Sorry, sir. We're a little off course; it's not always possible to get accurate weather forecasts about the mountains themselves in this region of Uzbekistan. We're skirting the borders of Kamyristan, and we need to be a little more careful than usual. We can't go up any higher; the winds up there are even stronger than they are at this point. We're worried about going down a thousand feet or so. Don't want to get hung up on a mountain top. It should smooth out as soon as we get through the Qarshi mountain range and back on course. We'll be landing in Saudi Arabia real soon, sir."

"Right." Ryan grimaced. 'Real soon' meant another three hours or so, depending on how long it took to navigate through this mountain range, and as he recalled, the United States didn't have particularly good relationships with the government of Kamyristan, a tiny country with a big attitude nestled between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. A bit of caution was a good thing. But pestering the pilots wasn't going to improve matters. Ryan made his way back to his seat, buckling himself in. "Pilot says not too much longer of this. It's smooth sailing as soon as we get through the mountains."

"Good." Kim Brown looked a little green, and Ryan made a mental note of where the plastic bags were. Not that he blamed her; Ryan himself was feeling the pain, and he'd been through this himself on a thousand missions. But Kim swallowed hard, shoved down her misery. "This was a good thing that we did. Thank you for asking me to be a part of this expedition, Colonel Ryan."

"My pleasure, Mrs. Brown. I'm grateful that you agreed to come along." He turned his attention to the medics. "You boys still with us?"

"Yes, sir, colonel, but I'm starting to wish that we hadn't handed out all the anti-cholinergics," one returned, by which the colonel deciphered that the medic was referring to anti-nausea medications. Damn medics; why couldn't they speak English like everyone else in this man's army?

Ryan settled himself back in his seat, preparing to ride it out in silence if not comfort. "Suck it up, soldier. Suck it up. Those people needed it more than we do."

"Yes, sir." There was a grin in the voice that didn't quite come off, letting the colonel know that the medics were just as proud of the work as everyone else. _At least I've got something to upchuck. Those kids in the village usually went hungry once per week or more._ The medic tightened his belt.

_Bam!_

A loud report, followed by a shudder that would have tossed the passengers into the air had it not been for the seatbelts. Kim cried out in sudden terror.

"What the—?" Ryan abruptly censored his own exclamation in deference to the ladies present. That was not a normal air pocket. That was—

Smoke billowed past the window. The cabin tilted; the nose dipped.

_What the hell happened?_ "Captain?" Ryan called forward.

Again the co-pilot responded, but this time with none of the reassurance. "Everyone buckle in _now!_ Somebody on the ground got hold of a rocket launcher!"

How the hell did they—? It didn't matter at the moment. This wasn't bad weather, this was combat and all Ryan had for troops was two pilots, two medics, and two civilians, all aboard an unarmed cargo carrier with no damn guns to man and shoot back with. He bit back a curse. "What's our position?"

The co-pilot shot two birds with one stone. He grabbed the radio comm. "Mayday! Mayday! We are under attack by unknown forces. Last known position:" he reeled off a set of coordinates. "We are off course, current position unknown. Repeat: we were attacked by unknown forces and are going down—damn!" The radio burst into static, with a visible spark of electricity to make the point clear. The co-pilot instinctively pulled back his hand, shaking off the sudden pain, sticking the finger into his mouth before grabbing the joystick to help the pilot control what was possible to control. It wasn't much.

_Crap_. Ryan started a mental inventory of resources of what they had, assuming that he and the others would be alive when this bird touched down with all the delicacy of a duck shot out of the sky for a Sunday night dinner. Five rifles stowed away in cargo; no military man went anywhere without it. Ryan had his handgun, as did each of the medics. Probably not too much ammunition; that wasn't among the supplies that they had expected to give out on this mission. A couple of survival packs in the cargo hold as standard equipment. Parachutes that would do them no good—they'd be on the ground before any of them could don a 'chute and jump and Ryan would give odds that one or more would break a leg in the effort if they tried it. No food beyond what was in the survival packs. All the candy had long since gone down young gullets. Even the breath mints in Mrs. Blaine's pack had been handed out.

Hell, maybe they'd be lucky and die on impact.

He could always hope.

2

Whoever tapped in the signal code to the beeper had to be telepathic. How else could they know that Hector Williams had Halle Berry in his arms, moving past the kissing stage and well into the part where—

The beeper buzzed once again. Now fully awake and frustrated, Hector grabbed the pager and bid his dream a pleasant good night.

Four AM. Not too bad this time. The last mission his pager had called him in was at two, just after midnight. Come to think of it, Halle had been teasing him that night as well.

_The story of my life_.

He wasn't quite the last one to arrive; Charlie Gray tagged in on his heels, yawning, still shoving a tee shirt into his pants. But the moment that he saw the others, he knew that something was not right. Hector Williams woke up in a hurry.

It was normal to feel the tension. These were dangerous missions, with a very real chance of coming home in a body bag and the government disavowing any knowledge of their actions, etc; real honest-to-murgatroyd Mission Impossible stuff. The adrenaline would ease through the joints, making everything seem just a little bit more alive, the colors more intense, the air sweeter to breathe.

But there was more than simple pre-mission jitters here. It was the way Jonas Blaine was standing, refusing to give in to the adrenaline. It was the white knuckles where Bob Brown clutched onto the table he was sitting. Even Mack Gerhardt looked unhappy; the mission hadn't started and he wasn't under cover and Mack never looked unhappy unless the cover called for it. There was something else going on beyond a simple mission.

And Colonel Ryan, commander of the Unit, wasn't there.

Charlie Gray put it into words of one syllable: "What?"

Jonas Blaine could have been discussing the weather. "Colonel's plane went down." His voice was deep and clear and carefully monotone and that was what gave it away. It was the Colonel, and Blaine's wife, and Brown's wife that went down with that plane.

But that didn't explain the pager calling Williams in, or Gerhardt or Gray.

Gerhardt took over. "Rescue efforts from our area brethren are going at the usual snail's pace, with efforts by the State Department of two countries slowing them down. The co-pilot was able to radio their last known location, but satellites aren't picking up anything yet. We know they were blown off course by the mountain gusts. We're widening the search, hoping to pick up something."

"Are they alive?" It was a fair question, despite the tightening in Brown's jaw.

Gerhardt faced reality. "We don't know. There's no response on the radio. There was one shout for help, something about getting shot at. Nothing since then." He smiled, the expression flat and humorless. "We don't plan on waiting for the regulars to pull our people out."

Williams schooled his own features to impassivity. This was a clear breach of military protocol with possible international consequences if they were caught. Still…

"Volunteers only," Jonas said, his tones resonant and measured. "We make a night jump to where ever reconnaissance thinks they are, and bring the survivors to a pick up point on the Uzbekistan border."

"They were last heard from near the edge of Kamyristan," Brown added woodenly. No one had to tell anyone else what that meant.

"Like I said," Jonas repeated, "volunteers only."

Jonas Blaine never repeated himself. Certainly not on a mission briefing.

Gray shrugged, hitched his pants up a bit higher. "Like I've got something better to do for the next few days?"


	2. Down 2

3

All right, it was cold.

And Colonel Thomas P. Ryan was never so grateful as to be alive to feel that cold, although he suspected he might not continue in that sentiment if he had to put up with it for too much longer. He opened his eyes, not remembering when they had closed of their own volition for protection. It was dark inside the cabin. And, _damn_, his leg hurt. _Crap_; Ryan pulled a piece of jagged metal out, hoping that it hadn't done more than slice into a bit of muscle. He put that aside; unless he was about to exsanguinate himself right there on the cabin floor, there were more important issues to hand.

"Sound off," he ordered.

"Danvers." The co-pilot. "McBride is dead." Grimly. That had been the captain of the flight.

"Manetti. I'm okay. Sprained an ankle. I'll live." That was one of the medics.

"Walenski. I'm good. A little banged up, but good." That last was pushed out past gritted teeth, and in the dim evening light Ryan could see that it wasn't particularly accurate. Blood-covered bone stuck up out of the second medic's arm, ensuring that not only would the man not be able to last long on an enforced march, but that he wouldn't be able to hold a weapon. And if they remained out here for too much longer, infection could set in.

"Ladies?" It seemed silly to hold to manners in this situation, but Ryan was too busy to worry about shaking the habit.

"I'm fine, colonel." That was Molly Blaine. She'd be fine even if she weren't. "Kim?"

"Scared out of my wits, but that's all." Brown's wife too showed her colors. "What happened? Beside the obvious, I mean."

Danvers answered her. "Somebody got hold of a rocket launcher, Mrs. Brown. And these mountains are filled with people with no particular love for Americans. They shot off one of the engines, and we weren't able to keep this bird flying in those mountain air currents. We're lucky to be down and alive." His face hardened. "Most of us, that is."

Ryan moved on to more important things. "Radio, airman?"

"Out, sir." Danvers was grateful to have the colonel take command. "It shorted out."

"You get an SOS into the airwaves?"

"Yes, sir. I think so, sir. I tried."

"Then they'll be coming after us. May take a little while, but we're not going anywhere. Even if it didn't go out, they'll know something's up when we miss our ETA. How about a position?"

"Not sure, sir. We got through one set of mountain peaks, but the winds were pushing us off course."

"Make an educated guess, airman."

Danvers looked distinctly unhappy. "I can't be certain, sir…"

"Spit it out, son. Where are we?" Ryan knew all too well what was coming, but couldn't resist torturing himself.

"I think we're in Kamyristan, sir."

"Wonderful." That too slipped out, although the curse that should have accompanied it got swallowed to roil around in his stomach with the rest of his nerves.

Kim unlatched her seat belt, wincing at the bruise that had been caused while it saved her life. "What does that mean, colonel?"

It hadn't been Molly Blaine who'd asked, Ryan noted. The experience showed. The older woman had done her homework not only on Uzbekistan but on its neighbors and how they related to Americans. Ryan answered, "Kamyristan's one of the less friendly places to Americans, Mrs. Brown. Our flight plan was supposed to avoid it, fly through Afghanistan and around to get back to Saudi Arabia."

Danvers tried to help. "We may not be there, ma'am. We may still be in Uzbekistan, on their side of the Qarshi Mountains. We may be able to get help."

Ryan looked around, survival skills coming into play. "It's mid-afternoon; we'd best get hustling before the sun goes down entirely. It's cold now, and it's going to get colder. For the moment, we stay with the plane. It'll be the best way for any rescue operation to locate us. Delegation time: Manetti, patch up Walenski, then do a count on what we have for medical supplies in case we have to hoof it out of here. Danvers, you and I will see to the captain. Ladies, I need the two of you to see if you can get into the cargo area, pull out whatever you think we can use. We need to set up housekeeping inside this place for the night, so look for the survival kits that have blankets. We'll need some source of fire for heat, as well, and something to keep it in without burning ourselves out. Can you do that?"

"We'll see to it," Molly assured him.

Ryan didn't like the way Mrs. Blaine moved, her actions slow and measured, as if something was hurting inside. He'd seen it in his men on too many occasions, when the mission demanded that they continue or die, when he himself had been out in the field. But, just as he'd done back then, he kept his mouth shut. There wasn't anything he could do about it, and insisting that someone under his command admit to the injury when the nearest hospital was a few hundred miles away wasn't going to help.

But he'd keep an eye on her. And, to be fair, he ought to keep an eye on himself. Ryan promised himself that he'd grab a bandage for the slice in his own leg before working to clean up the wreckage.

The captain had died on impact. The way the head lolled loosely on the neck suggested that the bones connecting the brain to the back had been shattered and death mercifully quick. Ryan helped Danvers to wrestle the body outside and cover it with boulders. Digging a grave in this cold and in the frost-hardened ground wasn't going to happen. The best they could offer the man at the moment was a little protection from wolves and other scavengers and their prayers for the dead man's soul. It didn't take long to accomplish but both Ryan's hands and his heart were icicle-ridden before they were through.

As he'd suspected, the ladies were thorough in going through the cargo area, pulling out everything that might be of use. The survival kits were a given, as were the blankets and the fire-starters. Mrs. Blaine and Brown were inventive, too, fashioning a fire pit out of a metal foot locker that would keep a fire in place inside their make-shift shelter. Their food supplies were not looking good; four MRE's and a package of biscuits that had been overlooked from their mercy mission. That didn't worry Ryan overmuch. He'd lived off of the land before, and he could do it again. Heck, this was fall, and harvest season. If he worked at it, he could even offer them a three course feast, assuming that the ladies weren't all that fastidious.

As he and Danvers finished up, it started to gently snow: yet another indication that they'd crashed on the mountainside. Down in the valley it was still green, with the fields yielding up their bounty. If there was no rescue by mid-day tomorrow, Ryan would think about hiking down to those parts and see what he could find. Where there were cultivated fields, there were people who did the cultivating. And those people were likely to have some form of communication with the rest of the world that he could take advantage of. They might not speak English or any other language that Unit Commander Colonel Tom Ryan could make himself understood in, but he also was possessed of the ability to make a variety of hand gestures to get his point across, hopefully without offending the local elders or getting his throat cut.

It looked do-able.

4

Conservation of energy.

Williams and Gray were doing it; resting quietly in the seats lining the edges of the air transport that Master Sergeant Blaine had rustled up with orders just shy of legal. Gerhardt was calm as well. It wasn't _his_ wife that had gone down in that plane.

No, the one that Brown really envied was Jonas Blaine. The man was as serene as Brown had ever seen him, as if this was a routine mission and a low risk one at that. Brown couldn't ever remember seeing the man lose control over himself. Get angry, yes. Especially when someone did something foolish and avoided getting killed on Jonas's watch by the grace of God and very little else. That would be when Jonas would rip the hide off the deserving grunt, each word delivered with devastating accuracy and power and by God you knew you were wrong. When the cover called for fury, no one did it better than Jonas Blaine. He could scare the spots off of a leopard if he so desired. But the spot removal technique was always controlled, always done with the power of the intelligence behind those brown eyes that could look right through you into your soul.

At the moment, Jonas Blaine was calm. Relaxed. Conserving his energy for the upcoming mission. Never mind that they didn't have a target area for the upcoming drop, no sign of any wreckage anywhere that anyone had been able to find. There'd been one SOS—the co-pilot's voice, someone thought—and then nothing. Vanished out of thin air—literally.

Gerhardt and Gray had worked on that problem. They'd taken that last known position and made some rough calculations as to where the plane had most likely been blown to by the sharp winds that whistled through the Qarshi mountain range. Jonas had watched over their shoulders, taking advantage of their expertise, not butting in. The results hadn't been encouraging, and the area of interest over-large. The most likely spot for the plane to have gone down was on a mountain just over the border into Kamyristan, an area noted for rocks and trees and generally not conducive to landing in one piece. They could be hunting down seven corpses instead of warm bodies.

Brown felt his blood run cold. His infant son would never know his mother. But how would he ever manage to tell his daughter? "Serena, honey, Mommy's not coming back. She's dead." His throat clenched. Bob Brown could look down a gun barrel without flinching but having that conversation with his daughter would take more courage than he thought that he owned. It was Brown himself who walked into danger. Kim kept the home fires burning, kept the family safe. This wasn't supposed to happen. She was supposed to be untouchable by the horrors of the world. She was his beacon, burning brightly for him to come home to, and he began to understand just how hard the job of being married to a soldier was. He'd never seen it from this side.

Jonas favored him with an understanding eye. "We'll find them," was his comment. "One way or another."

Brown tried to match the older man's composure. "We'll find them," he repeated. Maybe if he said it enough times, he'd believe it.

A gesture from up front. The co-pilot turned around, his hand to the head phones. "Sergeant Major?"

"You've got something?" Jonas came alive in an instant, Brown beside him.

"ComSat called in. Satellite imaging picked up something on the Agarat Zamir mountain, on the Kamyristan side. Intelligence is working to get a better picture, but they think it may be a downed plane. No way to tell if it's the one you're looking for. Could be old."

"Position?"

The co-pilot gave the numbers, and Gerhardt pulled out his map, Gray and he putting their heads together.

Jonas finally showed some impatience. "Well?"

"It's a possible, Jonas," Gerhardt allowed. "It's within our search radius. A little further out than we thought likely, but still possible."

Jonas turned back to the co-pilot. "How far to that site?"

"Less than an hour further on," the man replied. "Would've been longer if we tried to aim directly for their last known position. That's where conventional rescue operations are concentrating."

"Those boys having any luck?"

"Not that they've reported over the airwaves," the co-pilot told him, reminding him, "you told me to keep radio silence. That order still stand?"

"Yes, it does," Blaine said, tightening his lips. "If we need to drop into someplace quietly, they don't need to know that we were ever there. If you take my meaning," he added, white teeth showing. "You just keep flying toward that site, and keep under the political radar as well as the more conventional type. You can do that?"

"I can do that," the pilot confirmed, butting in, listening to both the conversation and the radio chatter on his own headphones. "You concentrate on getting our people out, and I'll have this bus waiting at the pick-up point."


	3. Down 3

5

Mrs. Blaine and Mrs. Brown hadn't given him any trouble about sharing body heat with the men, and for that Col. Ryan was grateful. He'd chosen well for this mission; not that he'd expected to ditch a plane on the way back but a man didn't know which way the cards would turn up in a deck like this. It could have been much worse; it could have been the General's wife who decided to come along as though this were a sight-seeing vacation instead of a mercy mission, and then he and the others would have been expected to fetch and carry at her every whim. He could hear her now, whining that the mountains weren't warm enough, and couldn't he speak to the weatherman and arrange it? No, a man didn't get all that many blessings in this life, but this was one of them and Ryan well satisfied with it.

They looked peaceful, huddled together under four shared blankets, Walenski snoring lightly with a bunch of pain-killers keeping him under despite his broken wing. Mrs. Brown had her fist clenched up under her chin, looking like a little baby all curled up and cuddled next to Mrs. Blaine on one side and Walenski on the other. The little window over their heads, miraculously unshattered, was collecting the condensation from their even breathing. Danvers moaned once; a bad dream.

No one slept well, least of all Col. Ryan, and it wasn't just because his leg was hurtin' like the dickens. He'd set up watch, he and Danvers and Manetti. Both ladies had offered, and he'd put them off, telling them that they could take watch tomorrow night if they were still out here. That quieted them, not quite as Ryan had hoped; it put the thought that maybe someone wouldn't find them during the upcoming day. Not a pleasant concept, but it slipped out before Ryan thought to censor it for the civilians. Walenski, the medic with the broken wing, he refused to let take a watch. Ryan could tell just by looking at the man that infection was setting in fast. If they didn't get out of here soon, the U.S. Army would be out one damned fine medic. As it was, it didn't look good. Manetti doctored him as best as he could, dosing the man with a few pain-killers and antibiotics that they found in the survival gear, but Manetti's expression that he tried valiantly to cover up was another indication of how effective he thought it would be.

Damn.

Ryan himself took the dawn watch, shorted himself on sleep, knowing that he had the best shot at survival of any of them. But he was determined to pull as many through as he could. _Don't think I could look either Jonas or Bob Brown in the eye if I let them down. You know that, ladies? You know how much I think of your menfolk? Help me on this. Hang in there. Stay alive, for them and for me_.

He stirred the embers in the foot-locker fire pit, coaxing a bit more heat from the wood. It was almost time to add another log. Ryan and Danvers had pulled in enough wood to last through the night and into the morning, knowing that snow was falling and would dampen the wood enough to smoke them all out of the plane. Danvers had spent the rest of his waking hours trying to persuade the radio to function just one more time, send out another signal that could be heard in these mountaintops. The expression on the co-pilot's face told Ryan that it was a long shot, but even long shots were better than no shots. Ryan told him to keep working until the man fell asleep with the circuit board in his hands.

Then Ryan heard it. The sky was starting to lighten with a false dawn, not yet enough sun to see with but just a little promise of the day to come. There—he heard it again. A little _scritch scritch_ outside the plane. It could have been mistaken for the crackling of the fire in the firepot but Tom Ryan hadn't always been a colonel. Tom Ryan had led his share of covert missions in places where civilized men didn't go, and he could distinguish between a fire popping inside and something—or some_one_—creeping up on them from without.

Not good. A rescue party would be hootin' and hollerin'. Even people from the village ought to be calling out in whatever language they saw fit to speak here abouts. With luck, they'd have someone who spoke Russian, and Ryan would be able to make himself understood in the half-assed amount he remembered from his embassy detail days.

No, anyone creeping up on a downed plane at the crack of dawn was someone to be wary of. _And let's not forget that somebody took us out of the sky with a rocket launcher._ Ryan loosened the pistol in its holster and wakened Danvers.

"Lemme sleep, sarge."

"Wake up, soldier!" Ryan hissed, putting just enough venom into it to cause Danvers to jump to attention. Ryan hurried put a hand over Danvers' mouth to prevent the yell that he feared would follow.

Danvers was now thoroughly awake, and his eyebrows did the talking for him: _trouble?_

_Maybe. Grab your rifle and follow me_. Ryan didn't need to add _and be quiet about it_. Danvers was now awake and thinking. He racked his weapon, ready to fire on Ryan's command.

Ryan rubbed away some of the condensation from the window. He'd stayed inside to conserve warmth, just peering out through the various windows to keep watch. Any opening of a door would sap away a lot of the heat that they'd so laboriously built up inside, and he'd only gone out the once to walk the perimeter and get to know the terrain while fetching some of the wood. He regretted not being outside at the moment; any attempt to leave the downed craft would alert whoever was outside that they'd been noticed. So all Ryan could do was to slip from window to window, peering out and trying to see if he could see anyone in the dawn.

No, he couldn't see anyone but he didn't need to. Snow had fallen. Not a lot of it, true, but enough so it served a few purposes. The first purpose was adding another layer of insulation to the plane, sealing in a bit more heat. The second was to show the tracks of anything mobile on the outside. Ryan could see his own footprints where the first flakes had melted under his feet, could see the deeper tracks where a small herd of deer had wandered through during the night, hunting for edibles. And then he saw more footprints. Approximately size ten, if his eyes hadn't deceived him; a size ten and also a size twelve. Big man and medium size man, neither one heavy-laden, which meant that they were scoping the plane out rather than carrying back a deer carcass to be salted away against winter starvation.

Were they still there? Possibly, though why they hadn't knocked politely was more than a little concerning. Ryan waited for several minutes, listening, hearing only the breathing of the sleepers inside punctuated by Walenski's snores.

Danvers looked a question at him.

Ryan shrugged his shoulders. _Don't know, soldier_. But he came to a decision; he needed to go outside. Best case scenario: the pair watching the plane were waiting to see if anyone was still alive inside before venturing forth and would welcome them with open arms. Worst case: they'd shoot him in the eye as soon as he poked his head out. Hm, not so bad. He wouldn't have to face his men as to why he hadn't gotten their womenfolk out alive.

He put his face next to Danvers' ear. "I'm gonna do a look-see. Wake the others, quietly. Don't let them make a sound. I don't like the looks of this, and I want everyone up and armed. Don't do anything unless they start it. Got it?"

Danvers nodded, not trusting his voice this early in the morning.

The door to the cabin creaked when he pushed against it. Ryan knew that it was going to happen, knew that he'd be about as obvious as toddler walking into a shop filled with expensive crystal vases. Couldn't be helped. Next time he'd ask the poor dead pilot to be sure to set the plane down gently when he got shot out of the sky. _Right_. His leg stabbed angrily at him, trying to insist that he put it up and rest it for a bit.

Deep breath. Shove the head out for a quick look and pull it back before someone could shoot it off.

Nothing.

Maybe they'd left?

Without checking out the interior of the plane? Naw. Ryan liked luck as much as the next man, but he wasn't stupid. They were waiting for him to try it again, this time maybe stick his head out and hold it there for a moment. Makes it easier to get a clean shot, don't ya know.

But Ryan had gotten what he wanted: a look at the outside. Nobody in sight; that he'd expected. And he'd refreshed his memory as to the layout of the land. There was the grove of trees off to the right which was where he suspected that the two men were. It was where Ryan himself would be if he were trying to sneak up on a downed aircraft. More to the point, there was a crop of tall bushes along the right not too far away. Ryan intended to use those bushes.

First, a scrap of cloth ripped from the parachutes they'd never used, with a piece of twisted metal inside to give it some heft. Didn't take long to get the thing torched, flames licking at the fabric and snapping. The rest were wide-awake now, watching his every move in scared silence. Damn, but Mrs. Brown had big eyes. They looked even bigger right now, hands clenching a rifle and fingers ready to flip off the safety.

Another deep breath. Time for action. What he wouldn't give to have a couple of his own men at his back, not these army grunts used to flying through the sky and patching other people up rather than shooting directly at the enemy. On the count of three—hell, he didn't need to count. It was just him and his distraction.

Quick flash. Toss the flaming scrap out at the grove of trees where the two men were, right at the dead leaves that would make decent fire fodder.

A yell told him he'd aimed true. Three bodies—damn, he'd miscounted. Oughta send himself back to training school—went running out of the grove, one man's shirt with flames trailing after him until he had the sense to drop himself onto the snow and roll around for a moment to douse the fire licking at his backside. Fast runner; took only a couple moments to pick himself back up and catch up with his compatriots.

Ryan, after his first look-see, dove out of the aircraft cabin and straight into the bushes that he'd spotted. He lay there a moment, breathing hard, his leg screeching at him, waiting for the bullets to slam into him as his first and only clue that they'd seen him. When, after thirty seconds of life, he decided that his distraction had successfully diverted their attention for long enough for him to get loose, he slipped to his feet, crouched, and scuttled off into the brush.

Damn, there were more of 'em! A quick head count said at least six of the little buggers, maybe more, all of 'em tearing off after the trio he'd set aflame. That sure as shootin' wasn't no rescue party hiding in the bushes, no matter what any State Department was gonna say later on. Ryan recognized the look; he'd seen it only a few hundred times before. Those were outlaws, a small band of men so desperate and so vicious that normal people wouldn't have anything to do with them. They'd raid the crops and terrorize a town until the local army would get riled up enough to chase 'em out for another territory to deal with. And, with winter coming on, those fellows would be looking to take as much as they could get however they needed to get it. It was either that, or die of starvation.

Situation assessment: Ryan's side didn't have much going for it, but the enemy had a few misgivings, too. Like, they probably were a bit shy on ammunition for those ancient pieces of tinfoil they were carrying. Ammo didn't exactly grow on trees around here, so the band of mountain men would only shoot if they had to—and if they intended to kill whatever they were aiming at. On the other hand, those wicked-ass knives Ryan had gotten a glimpse of likely were well-used. Knives? Hell, with the length of them, those things almost qualified as sabers. And, bottom line, there were maybe a dozen of them and only two able-bodied men in Ryan's group. _Doesn't look good for our heroes._

_All right, Ryan, you're out here and free to move about the countryside. What are you going to do with your assets?_ Ryan stifled a grim smile. Those bandits knew the land, but Ryan had good old-fashioned training from some of the best hand-to-hand combat fighters in the world and despite the military's best efforts to keep him riding a desk chair he still got out almost daily to work out in some fashion or another to keep himself sharp. That discipline would stand him in good stead right about now. One against a dozen; not particularly good odds but he'd have to see what he could do.

6

Blaine lurched to the front of the cabin, hanging onto the handholds to prevent going down to his knees. He'd been in worse, but not by much, and his admiration for the pilots that had volunteered to take him and his men into these devilish mountains increased.

"How much further?" he all but shouted, trying to make himself heard over the straining of the jets.

"'nother hour," the pilot shouted back, his thick cracker drawl still evident through the noise. "Not gonna be able to git y'all the way there. Gonna be a bit of a hike."

"_How_ much of a hike?"

The pilot wasn't happy. "Ten, fifteen miles."

"Not too bad."

"_Up_hill."

Jonas had caught sight of the landscape. "And in the snow."

"You asked fer it, Jonas. Ah'm jist the taxi driver." The pilot had another worry. "Y'all gonna be able to land them 'chutes without breaking something precious?"

Jonas took another look. "Going to try." He chuckled, the sound dry and humorless. "Going to try _real_ hard."

It was going to be the first of many obstacles: getting to the ground intact. Cold. Updrafts and downdrafts. Height, with its lack of oxygen. And the frozen hard ground, unforgiving for anyone coming in for a too fast landing. This was a mission, in hostile territory, and an injury was something that they couldn't afford.

He faced his men. "Last chance to turn back. Like I said, this is volunteer only."

Brown was a given. "That's my wife, Top. And yours."

Gerhardt snorted. "You think I want to tell Tiffy that her best friends are gone? Get real. I'd rather get dropped—" he looked out through the small port—"on a mountainside cold enough to freeze my shorts."

Williams pasted on a crooked smile. "I heard this is where the Abominable Snowman hangs out. Always wanted to meet him, Top."

Last one. Jonas cocked his head. "Charlie? You can back out now."

Gray tightened the straps holding the chute in place. "No, I can't. Gotta look at myself in the mirror on a daily basis. Gotta like what I see." One last tug. "You're wasting time, Top. Let's bail, and let the man fly his plane to the rendezvous point."

Jonas nodded, checking his own straps. He had a good team.


	4. Down 4

9

Danvers pulled back from the cabin window. "They're bunching up. Wonder what they're planning?" He clutched the rifle in his hands. "Wonder how many of them there are?"

"Wonder where the colonel is?" Manetti added nervously. "Shouldn't he have been back by now?"

Molly carefully kept away from the small window, unwilling to allow the enemy to catch a glimpse of any of them. "The colonel's out doing his job," she told the others firmly. "You wouldn't expect him back before it's done, would you? Besides, just how would he have crawled back into this plane with those men shooting at him? We need to give him some time. Trust him; he knows what he's doing."

"Our job is to survive," Kim chimed in. Bob didn't tell her about his missions, the things he knew how to do, and she found herself wishing that he had. Just a few little hints here and there, something to tell her what she ought to be doing in this situation. He'd done some—it had been Kim Brown firing the bullets that taught the enemy outside to be wary of their prey—but it wasn't enough. If it had been, Kim reflected glumly, then they wouldn't be in this mess. They'd have overcome the bandits outside and would be hiking down the mountainside to safety and warmth. Cup of hot chocolate would be nice, she decided. Couple of little marshmallows in it, bobbing next to each other as they melted into a tasty white goo. Gee, if she was going to indulge in fantasies, might as well add a fattening chocolate sundae beside it.

Hah. Right now she'd settle for seeing an American face getting her out of here.

Danvers was doing a fine job of unnerving everyone. "I can take a shot," he announced. "I think I see some movement in those bushes over there. I can get one of them."

"You just hold off," Molly ordered. "You heard the colonel, before he left. We'll shoot if they shoot at us, but we're not to start anything. We might hit the colonel," she added, allowing a hint of exasperation with the young pilot to show.

"But—"

"Did you, or did you not, hear a superior officer's orders?" Molly knew which buttons to push. "We are not in the air, young man, and you are not in control of this craft now that it is on the ground. Go see if you can get that radio to working."

"But—"

"Mrs. Brown and I will watch the door," Molly told him. _Because she and I have more sense than all the rest of you cramped inside this cabin._ "Go."

Molly Blaine was not in his chain of command, but after more than two decades of living as a military wife, she knew the particular tone of voice that shouted _follow my orders_. She'd used it on her children, on her neighbors, and on certain members of the human race overall, whenever she felt the need. There weren't any stripes on her clothing to authorize her, and Molly Blaine didn't need such symbols. The co-pilot did as he was told.

Kim glanced at her as she rejoined the younger woman at the door. "He's right, you know," Kim offered quietly. "They are bunching up. They're planning something."

"They may be," Molly allowed. "This time, if they charge, shoot to kill."

Which wasn't what Kim wanted to hear, but she had to agree. She wrinkled her nose. "I hope the colonel can do something before that."

"So do I, child. So do I." And Molly sighed. She could think of better places to be right now. Better places than inside a downed plane, planning on how to kill half a dozen desperate men who wanted to kill them first.

10

Unfortunately for Ryan, these idiots weren't the stupidest idiots he'd run across. He wished that they were. He'd have preferred to take them out one by one. As singletons, he would match his combat skills against any one of 'em, even with his bum leg, and ask for a coffee and Danish while doing it. But these bozos were bunching together, already suspecting that he'd gotten out of the plane and was doing just exactly what he was doing.

So they stuck together. One, maybe even two he could take out quietly but an even dozen was beyond realistic hope. And they were working themselves up. Ryan couldn't understand what they were saying, but he understood body language. These men were preparing to attack.

More brains; they sidled around to the crunched in nose of the plane so they could sneak up on the cabin door without being seen. Ryan ground his teeth; how to stop them? He really wished for a grenade, even something for a quick Molotov cocktail to toss at their asses.

Whatever. If they moved, he'd have to, also. Ryan hefted the liberated knife in his hand that he'd obtained from the first bandit. Not the best suited for throwing, but he'd make do. Even worst case scenario, he'd slow somebody down. Ryan had always been damn good with a knife. Now would be his opportunity to show that he hadn't forgotten everything he'd learned.

It came faster than he'd anticipated; they charged, surging up from underneath the belly of the plane. Ryan stood up and threw the knife directly at the last bandit, taking him in the back with an agonized screech. His handgun came out next.

But the others charged on.

11

Jonas held up his hand. "Anybody hear that?"

Williams identified it. "Gunfire. Lots of it."

"American weapons, some of 'em," was Gray's contribution. "The others? Maybe old-style Russian Kalashnikov's?"

"Still six miles away, at least." Gerhardt kept his voice steady.

"Means that more than one person is alive up there." Brown too kept his voice on an even keel but it was a struggle.

"Let's hustle, gentlemen," was Jonas' reply.


	5. Down 5

12

The mountain men didn't need English. They got the message across to Ryan just fine without it: surrender, or watch the women die. One held Manetti's handgun to Kim Brown's head and shouted out in whatever language he possessed, looking around at where he thought the colonel might be hiding.

Manetti and Danvers were dead, both killed in the initial charge. Walenski, already half-dead from the swiftly moving infection in his arm, was executed in front of the women. Ryan had no illusions about the safety of the Unit wives, nor about their eventual fate. Their captors were little better than animals, and that was an insult to honest wildlife. If he needed to, he'd kill the women himself before those men could brutalize them to death.

But not yet. There was no doubt in his mind that someone would be coming after them. He knew his men; knew that The Unit looked after their own. Knew that more than a few of his men were not above 'taking the initiative' to make something happen that 'older and wiser heads' might not want to take responsibility for. Made for more than a few interesting interviews along the way and more than a few gray hairs.

All of which meant that help was on the way. Question was: would it be sooner or later? More to the point, would it be soon enough?

He kept to the brush. Hard as it was, he knew the rules: don't give the bandits any more hostages. Loose and free, Ryan was a threat. Once the women were dead, there would be nothing to restrain him. The mountain men knew that. They knew that once they killed the Unit wives, they would be gunned down in a last hail of bullets. Ryan would have nothing to gain. This gun to the head stuff was a bluff. A hard one to take, but a bluff just the same.

Yet another stand off. Ryan smiled grimly. Time was on his side. All he needed to do was to wait. And pray.

13

"Your job is to survive, child," Molly repeated to Kim. "No matter what, they can't really hurt you. Not unless you let them think that they can. Don't give them that satisfaction."

Kim gulped, shuddering. One of the men laughed in her face, touched her breast with a promise of more to come. It was the smell that was the worst, the smell of unwashed human flesh. It permeated the very air around the man, oozed from his breath like a living, slavering beast. She closed her eyes, praying for strength. "Molly—"

"Your job is to survive," Molly said again, like a mantra. "Don't think about what's going on. Think about Bob, and Serena. Think about that baby of yours, baby needs his mother to come back to him. This isn't really happening."

"This isn't happening," Kim gulped, shivering, shuddering while the scum in front of her pawed her hungrily through her clothing.

Two of the men seemed fascinated by Molly's skin tones, hadn't ever seen anyone who wasn't born in the steppes. One said something to the other, who laughed. Molly didn't bother to try to understand them. She knew what they were saying. They were comparing her to the other women that they'd raped. Her turn would come, or so they thought. One stroked her cheek, fascinated. She turned her face away in disgust, but he grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him.

She could spit in his face, but it would only earn her a blow. No, better to wait for an opportunity to do some real damage.

Molly Blaine wouldn't go down quietly.

14

No more gunfire.

That could mean any of a dozen things. The combatants of one side or the other could be dead. They could have been captured and worse off than dead. It could be a lull in the fighting. Both sides could have run out of bullets. Both sides could have kissed and made up. _Right._ _When pigs fly…_

What it did mean was that the directional signal had been silenced. The rescue team now no longer had the sound to pull them in the correct path, no way to tell how far away or what was going on. It meant that they needed to slow down, to reconnoiter, to scope out the situation before charging in blindly.

Jonas halted them about a mile down hill from where he judged the action to have taken place. There was no hint of what must have going on inside him, the feelings that Bob Brown was less successful at covering up. Brown kept looking longing up at the slope, unable to keep still, needing to move ahead.

The outcome would depend on what they did next, and intel was the most important step. Without it, people would get killed, and not the right people.

"Plan A," Jonas said, his voice deep and only the excessive calm betraying his concern. "Plan A: I want to surround the camp, look at what's happening. We'll come in from different parts of the compass. Mack, you take twelve o'clock high, come down from above. The rest of you, fan out around the clock and observe. You'll have one hour to make your way there, observe, and then we'll regroup two hundred yards downhill of the party. Do _not_ be seen. We will then come up with Plan B, the plan of attack. Maintain radio silence at all times. If anyone finds anything note-worthy, send a squib and we'll rendezvous at your location. Clear?"

Four heads nodded as one.

Jonas agreed. "Move out."

They traveled together as a silent group for another half mile before splitting up to go their separate ways. Hand signals sufficed, a wave to indicate that one or another was heading off in a different direction so as to minimize the chance of being seen by the lookouts that one or both of the shooting parties had undoubtedly posted. They peeled off as individuals, each one taking a different path, one heading through the trees that were trying to grow at this altitude and another selecting a deer path through the meadow toward the brush farther off. They would all approach the site unseen.

Williams trotted along his chosen path, his steps unhurried yet covering the distance rapidly. It was the gait of a wolf, easy and fluid, designed to travel miles in a body made for such work. His wind came naturally, the pack on his back nothing more than a minor nuisance, even the high altitude lack of oxygen not slowing him one whit. He carried his rifle in his hands, at ready.

Then he slowed. Afterward, he would never be able to tell what had alerted him, but Williams could feel something in the air. His steps grew more cautious, his movements more wary. He dropped into a crouch, slipped his pack to the ground so that he could move more freely in the underbrush. He crawled forward.

It was the plane. The call letters stood out bold and clear against the side of the downed aircraft, the wing just behind torn off with such force that it could only have been from weapon's fire. This was no accident; someone had shot the colonel's plane down. Had anyone survived? Certainly, because Hector himself had heard the gunfire just over an hour ago.

He debated calling the others to this location, and decided against it. This was not where anyone was; there were no sounds of life nearby beyond those of the non-human wildlife. A few birds twittered at him, a rabbit scuttled away in the undergrowth, but nothing larger.

He spotted a rough grave, covered with rocks: one death, at least. It didn't look large enough to hold more than one adult body. He didn't waste time wondering who. He could dig up the body, but searching for the living would be a better use of his time. There would be time enough for mourning once they were all back home.

A moment more, head cocked, to listen for the sounds of a human inside: nothing. He approached on silent feet, handgun in place, ready for anything.

Nothing.

He peered inside, sniffing. There was the scent of old smoke, of a fire doused several hours ago. There was the smell of unwashed bodies, the smell of blood. The smell of death.

There were three bodies there. Williams recognized none of them, but did recognize the uniforms: a pilot and two medics. All were covered in blood. Clearly, all had fought to the end.

No, wait. One, the one with a rough splint on his arm and dried blood that had seeped through, had been executed with a bullet to the back of the head. Williams tamped down all emotions, took refuge in the cold. He didn't have time to be outraged. This was the plane that they were looking for, and the colonel and the two wives needed to be located.

It wasn't hard to read the story of what had happened, and it was much as they had surmised: someone—several someones, actually—had taken over the plane by force and dragged off the survivors of the crash. Williams returned to the area outside, reading the next chapter of the story of what had gone on.

Many heavy footprints, too many to decipher how many in the attacking party. It could be done with time and patience, neither of which Williams possessed at the moment. 'More than a handful' would have to do. There were two sets of lighter footprints, small and slender. Williams nodded to himself; women's footprints. He wouldn't want to say in what shape the wives were, but his report to his team leader would include the information that Molly Blaine and Kim Brown were alive when they were taken from the crash site.

He rose, and looked around. Nothing more to be learned at this site for the moment. He would be better used by proceeding to his assigned position, as per Plan A. His intel would contribute to the formulation of Plan B.

15

Mack Gerhardt was not a happy man.

He had pushed himself, wanting to get to his position as quickly as possible, knowing that he had the farthest to go to come down on the target group from the top end of the mountain. Now he was here, and observing the area, and not happy.

The mountainside was beautiful. Had this been a more politically stable area with a few more amenities for the beautiful wife that he cherished, he might have considered retiring here. Build a house to live in with his own hands. Plenty of hunting available, beautiful views, clean air—a place to consider heaven on earth.

But for every Eden, there was a snake. Actually, there were a bunch of 'em, all human, eight of them sitting around a fire putting their feet up and waiting for the coffee to finish brewing. Mack could smell the grounds from his vantage point, the odor thin and pale from the lack of enough beans to make a decent cup. These were mountain men, used to living without the usual trappings of civilization, their clothing proclaiming their outcast status from the rest of society. Two wore newly acquired army jackets, acquired, Mack had no doubt, just recently from a certain downed plane. His blood boiled. There was no sign of any prisoners. Had they killed them all, and looted the bodies? Mack fought down the urge to take one prisoner and find out at knife point. Attack one, and the rest would know what was up, and any captives would be killed on the spot.

And there could be captives. The mountain men had selected a spot with a cave attached, the dark cavern heading deep into the mountain side for protection against not only rain but wind and snow and a fair amount of cold. Mack counted eight men outside, but had no clue as to how many might be within the depths. Survivors from the plane could be in there, waiting for these men to ransom them or kill them, whichever seemed like a good idea at the time.

His radio hissed at him quietly, a single burst of static followed by three more. That was Gray's call sign; Carlito had found something and needed the rest to rendezvous at his location rather than at the agreed-upon site. Maybe he'd found the plane survivors, no need to bother this group of mountain men wearing army jackets and fondling newly acquired army hardware? Mack hoped not. He _really_ wanted to demonstrate to the group below him that taking things that didn't belong to them was really _really_ not nice.

16

"And I'm sayin', _Sergeant_—" Ryan stressed the rank, making the chain of command crystal clear.

Charlie Gray shrugged calmly. "It's your call, colonel," he replied calmly, finishing the task of tightening a white dressing over the slice in the colonel's leg. "If you think that you can keep up with that leg squirting out blood every time you take a step—"

"I can—" Colonel Ryan subsided, looking away in annoyance, knowing that Gray was right. "Dammit." He looked back. "I can shoot. Nothing wrong with my arm. Or my aim."

"Just your head." Jonas was the next on the scene, taking in the information in a single glance. "Good to see you breathing. What's the word?"

"Molly and Kim Brown are still alive, last I saw," Ryan said first, knowing that it was the thing that Jonas needed to hear. "Bastards took 'em back to their camp. I couldn't keep up. The rest were murdered."

"I can vouch for that, Top." Williams trotted up to hear the last. "I saw the evidence. The bodies were looted. One grave."

"The pilot, Captain McBride," Ryan confirmed. "He died on impact. I was able to take a couple of 'em out, one before and one after they rushed the plane."

"You got more than that, colonel," Williams said. "I found two more bodies further out with some bullet holes. They must have staggered away before they collapsed."

Jonas squatted down beside his commander. "How many left?"

"Couldn't tell for certain. They started with at least a dozen."

"I counted eight." Mack dropped in, perched his backside on a convenient boulder. "There could be more inside that cave of theirs."

"I counted the same number," Brown confirmed, still tense. "All armed, and now well-fed on some delicious Army-issue MRE's." The sarcasm covered his fear. "I didn't see any of ours. Colonel?"

"She's alive, son," Ryan told him, knowing what he was asking. "She was when they skedaddled, and I don't know why they would try to kill either of them." He paused. "Let's go get 'em out."


	6. Down 6

17

This was it. The moment of no return. Should she fight, or should she submit in the hope of living through it? Was it worth living, afterward, remembering? Would she ever be able to touch Bob again, knowing that this man was about to do the same thing to her?

No, not the same thing. Bob came to her with tenderness, sometimes with real need after coming home and doing the things that he had to do and needing to remember _why_ he was doing them and for whom, but always knowing that he loved her. That he cherished her, that he'd do whatever it took to make her happy. That she could count on him.

No, this man intended to _take_. He intended to take what he wanted, right here and now, with no thought for the woman he was taking. She was his by right of conquest, by might, and he intended to do as he pleased with her and leave her on the ground when he was through for the next man to claim.

And she was powerless to stop him. They'd taken all the guns, all the knives, even the tiny pocket knife that poor Lt. Danvers had clipped to his belt. They'd murdered all the men right in front of her and Molly, and laughed while they did it, then stripped the corpses of whatever clothing they wanted. The boots, the jackets, anything they could get their hands on, and left the bodies behind for the wolves to scavenge. Kim felt sick.

_I won't throw up_, she insisted to herself. He stank, and he tore her blouse off one shoulder, fondling the white skin he found beneath. The man grinned, the teeth rotting in his mouth.

This was it. 'Survive', Molly had told her. Survive how? In body only, her soul ripped from her in this man's moment of ecstasy? She'd be only a shell of herself, walking through the motions of life. That wasn't survival. That was a living death.

_Riiip_. That was the end of that blouse, the knit fabric now forlorn and tattered on the gray cave floor. Kim felt much the same.

The man grunted with satisfaction, looking forward to his pleasure. He fumbled one-handedly at his pants, seeking to free himself, holding her with the other hand as if she could run away. Run away where? Out of the cave into the hands of the rest of them?

Kim couldn't help herself. She began to struggle.

18

He said something to her, something in that guttural language of his, something obscene by the sound of it for he laughed when he finished saying it. His eyes roved over her, clearly wondering if she was the same color underneath her clothes. He intended to find out. He unbuttoned his pants, fingers clumsy with eagerness.

'Survive', she'd told Kim. What would Kim think of her after this? Molly didn't expect to be around to find out. There wasn't any cavalry coming over the hill to rescue them, no knights on white steeds, just a dirty little death on a cold mountainside. Such things were fine to hope for, to dream of, but Molly was a realist. There was only Tom Ryan out there and, as much as she thought of him, expecting one man—one man wounded and limping—to pull them out wasn't going to happen.

She hoped that Jonas would move on, find another woman worthy of him, wasn't at all certain that the man would make that happen. No, she could see him growing old in his job, consumed by it, until he was too old to continue in the field and they retired him to a desk to wither and die. Reaching out for female companionship, permanent female companionship, wasn't part of his nature. If Molly hadn't set her sights on him that long ago day, he'd have been an avowed bachelor, always wondering what he was missing. Or he'd have found some silly little thing that would have made him miserable trying to please her. No, Jonas needed a woman who could keep up with him, not someone who would let him walk all over her just because he was big and smart and canny without even trying.

In the meantime, she could teach these filthy back country curs a lesson they'd not soon forget. Molly fixed her gaze on the scum in front of her, canted her hips in that angle that always sent her man reeling towards the marital bed, knowing exactly what she was doing. She slipped her fingers under the buttons that held her blouse together—silly to think of preserving the clothing at a time like this, but there it was. "C'mon, big boy," she crooned, her voice husky, knowing that he wouldn't understand the words. It was the tone of her voice that mattered. "Let me give you something that you'll regret for the rest of your damn short life."

19

_Move fast_. That was the word for this mission. There were eight men huddled around the fire, sipping at their coffee and holding the mugs to the blaze to try to re-warm the tepid liquid before drinking it.

Brown saw no evidence of his wife, no sign of Blaine's wife either, just a group of men. Had this been America and had those men worn cleaner clothing, they could have been a friendly gathering of like-minded men on a hunting trip, getting away from their jobs and their families for some male-bonding rituals. The guns lay carelessly on the ground next to each man but well within reach should something—or someone—arrive to shoot at them. A waft of stench drifted his way, and Brown wrinkled his nose, couldn't help it. A pile of goods, much of it looted from the downed plane, sat in a miserable heap to one side of the camp.

Burst of static in his earpiece: the warning sign. Get ready. Be in your position. Brown tightened his grip on his gun.

_Ten._ _Nine_.

One man reached forward, freshened his cup from the dregs of the tin can coffee pot hanging over the blaze. Brown drew in a deep, centering breath, letting the adrenaline course through raw veins.

_Six._ _Five_.

A coarse remark from another. Brown wasn't certain of the language, but it sounded like an obscene comment, something to do with women for hire. He steadied himself. Now was not the time to let his emotions rule him.

_Three._ _Two_.

On the balls of his feet, ready to move.

_One._ _Go_.

Two rifle shots rang out. Two men, the two closest to the cave entrance, spun and dropped limply, blood spurting out of new holes in their heads: Ryan's aim was true. Brown leaped forward, heading for the cave entrance, Blaine meeting him at the opening and dashing in first.

More gunfire: Gerhardt, Gray, and Williams advanced, guns locked in hands, firing shot after shot after shot. Men went down before they could even reach for their guns. Terrified screams split the air.

Brown ignored them. His objective was the cave and the obstacles within.

The cave split into two branches. Brown didn't need the hand signal that Blaine tossed up. Blaine went one way, he the other. Speed was their ally, speed and surprise.

It was a short distance. Brown burst into the cave chamber, his way lighted by a torch stuck carelessly onto the wall. It was enough; he didn't need the night vision goggles in his pack. The torch helped him to see what he needed to see.

And what he saw was his wife, on her knees with her chest bare in the cold and tears running down her face, her captor looming over her with his pants dropped to his feet.

Brown's biggest regret was that it was over so quickly for his wife's assailant. The bullet left Brown's gun almost without his finger realizing that it had caressed the trigger. The mountain man staggered back against the wall of the cave, tripping over the pants around his ankles, flopping to the floor with the grace of a trout hooked and landed.

Training kicked in. Swift scan of the cavern: no one else there, no one else that needed killing. Brown took hold of the hostage that he'd been sent to rescue, took her by her bare arms, ignoring the shivering naked flesh, and pushed her against the cold cave wall, covering her with his own body, sheltering her. "Any more?"

"Outside." He could barely understand her through her fear.

"In here?" he demanded. She hadn't understood what he meant. The ones outside were already accounted for. Brown could trust his team on that count.

"N-no." Tears interfered, mixed with blood from the cut above her eye.

"Wait here." Safety first. He couldn't trust what she said, not yet. She had been scared out of her wits, literally. He pushed his way to the back of the cave chamber, checking that the man he'd shot was well and truly dead, and that there were no others lurking in the dark. He caught up her blouse on the way back, let it drop back to the floor. It was shredded, wouldn't do anything for either the cold or his wife's modesty.

Protection, he told himself. His team wouldn't say a word, certainly not in front of him or Kim, but she required a shield against the cold for her bare skin. The fact that his wife was naked from the waist up wasn't supposed to be part of what he was thinking. It was the cold that had to decide him.

There wasn't time for much. He needed to move, to neutralize the rest of the men outside, prevent them from coming after any hostages. Protection; he needed this hostage to have some protection against any bullets still buzzing through the air. Brown took refuge in his training, refusing to think of what this meant to him personally. He shrugged out of his flak jacket, helped Kim to slip her arms through. It wasn't much, her arms still bare, but it did what he needed it to do. Her fingers, clumsy with cold and terror, refused to work, so he latched the vest tight across her chest. It hung heavy and wide, dwarfing her inside. The fact that it covered her from everyone's eyes was secondary.

He gave her a moment to cling to him, to reassure herself that he'd actually come for her, but only a moment. "Stay behind me," he warned.

20

The tunnel was long and deep and black.

Night goggles were almost useless. They required some small amount of light to be operable, and of that there was precious little. Blaine kept one hand high and ahead of him, warning him of any low hanging rock outcroppings that would attack a tall man.

The shouting and the gunfire from without trickled away, as he knew that it would. His team had neutralized the eight men, now eight corpses, outside, were securing the area. His job, his and Brown's, was to determine if any hostages still survived and, if so, to extract them; safely, if possible. One or more of his team would be following in moments, as soon as the exterior was under control.

He listened. It was his best sense now that vision was taken away. He listened, heard the sounds of his men calming down after the fire fight. He heard the sound of someone creeping toward him in the tunnel ahead, heard the slow steps of someone feeling their way in the dark. Whoever it was, they were as blind as he, possibly more. Blaine at least had the goggles, would be able to see dark shadows in the blackness.

There. A shadow, moving toward him. The shadow wasn't tall, shorter than he by possibly as much as a foot. One arm longer that the other? No, carrying a knife, a weapon that these mountain men had already demonstrated a certain competence with.

The shadow spotted him just moments after he spotted the shadow. It acted; it flung itself at him with a curse that sounded—

That curse was in English, and foul, and in a falsetto.

Jonas checked his first strike—a killing strike—and knocked the blade away that had been aimed at his throat. "Molly!"

Silence. Then—"Jonas?" Shock. Disbelief.

Jonas grinned. A fit companion, to be sure. "You'll be the death of me yet, woman," he told her, holding her knife hand steady in the air. There was still tension in that arm, trying to attack anything that came at her. Reality hadn't yet battled down the terror.

Molly didn't say anything; couldn't say anything. Then the knife left her hand and clattered to the floor of the cave, and she grabbed gratefully onto her man. He couldn't see them, but he could hear the tears in her all but silent and shuddering sobs. The cavalry had come. Against all odds, the cavalry had come.

21

They'd taken more breaks on the trek to the pick-up point than Brown could ever remember taking, but they had been needed and not one did he regret. Gerhardt, Gray, and Williams were taking good-natured turns acting as a crutch for Colonel Ryan, the man snarling every step of the way about not needing any assistance, turning white as the snow that fluttered down around them after a bare hour or two. They'd been lucky that the weather had held off as long as it had.

Kim had been the first to drop, hadn't hit the ground because her husband had been supporting her most of the way. Blaine had called the first break a short hour after getting out of there, knowing that the women needed to leave the site as quickly as possible. Kim hadn't said a word, but had quietly refused to let go of Bob Brown, hanging onto the straps of his pack, another tear trickling down her cheek every so often, ready to freeze into an icicle unless she brushed it away.

Brown flashed Blaine a grateful look, then gathered her into his arms and let her shiver not so much with the cold as with the after-shock. It helped.

They went to ground a second time when Molly suddenly dashed off of the trail, and the sounds of retching hit everyone's ears. "Take five," was all that Blaine said as he went after her. They returned, wordlessly, Molly gray and tight-lipped, to resume the trek. Blaine wasn't about to tell her that he'd kept the knife that she came at him with. Kept it in all its bloody glory, never to be seen again by his wife but to be cherished as proof of her courage. It would be the focus of stories to be told to future grandchildren, to show them what kind of people they came from. She'd talk about it, sooner rather than later once they returned to the protection and security of home, but for now Blaine kept the knife safe in his pack. The horror could be re-visited once they were home, and not until then.

The plane was waiting for them at the designated spot on the far side of the mountain, on the Uzbekistan side where a hostile government wouldn't holler about violating sovereign air space, the pilot noisily chewing on a wad of gum, leaning against the warmth of the recently turned off engines. The women were all in, and Jonas had been seriously considering rigging up a stretcher to haul the colonel across the treacherous terrain when the glint of metal appeared, the light flickering in the snow. It took some doing, but every single one of his party walked to the plane under their own power. Each one crawled inside the rescue aircraft cabin.

Heat. It was the first thing that Jonas demanded for the people he and his team had rescued. The medic on board handed out blankets and hot drinks, barely waiting until the pilot got the craft lurched into the mountain airspace before administering treatment against exposure. Bob added his own body heat, encircling his wife with his arms, providing more than just heat. It was comfort that Kim needed, reassurance that the ordeal was over. She needed to know that she was safe and going home to her children.

Jonas Blaine was not a demonstrative man in public, but there was a certain expression on his face as he made certain to buckle himself in next to his own wife. Molly stayed quiet for most of the flight, not trying to talk over the noise of the engines.

Not so, once they were down on the ground. The ground crew opened the hatch, helped get the people out of the cabin, vehicles ready to ferry the team and their rescued loved ones to the hospital base.

Molly stopped them for a moment. "Colonel Ryan," she said.

"Yes, Mrs. Blaine?"

She fixed him with a fierce eye, a look that the colonel remembered well from the too many times they'd clashed. The terrified quiver was new, but understandable given the circumstances. That shiver didn't stop Molly Blaine. Ryan had the feeling that nothing short of an avalanche would.

"Colonel Ryan, I will tell you this in advance: the next 'mercy mission' you ask me to be a part of, the answer is no."

Ryan's mouth quirked up on one side. "Mrs. Blaine, the way I see it, we're all lucky that your husband came for us. From what I hear, you were about to take down the rest of the camp before they knew what hit 'em."

Jonas Blaine's hand tightened ever so slightly on his wife's arm. "Always told you, Tom. She's the reason I come back after every mission. She'd kill me if I didn't."

Molly stared at him, not certain what to make of it, too exhausted to understand. She looked at Ryan, then back at her husband. Then she took refuge in what she knew best: "you just wait until we get home, Jonas Blaine." She turned and walked off toward the others.

Jonas watched her go, his eyes widening. Ryan's grin was carefully hidden. Jonas finally chose to allow a small smile creep back onto his face.

"Oh, my," was all he said. And he walked off after his wife.

The End


End file.
